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A routine administrative announcement by the US State Department
yesterday highlighted an issue that I believe has not been adequately
addressed: the right to access information and government services in
numerous formats - including non-digital format. Yesterday, the
State Department announced that it would no longer accept paper
applications for its "diversity visa" program (this is the
annual visa lottery) (see State Department press release:
<a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/23329.htm">http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/23329.htm</a>).
All applications must be submitted through the State Department web site
and include a digital photo. As some immediately pointed out, this
places those who do not have easy access to the Internet (especially in
poor nations) at a major disadvantage in applying for the
program.<br><br>
The thrust of the WSIS is to increase the utilization of ICT for a number
of beneficial purposes: poverty reduction, health care, education
etc. However, the function of ICT is to increase
communications and access to information. What if ICT is used to
decrease access -- not simply through means of censorship -- but
inadvertently by shutting down other forms of information access?
<br><br>
Unfortunately, this substitution process seems to be exactly what is
happening in the push for e-government. By putting everything
on-line and only on-line, governments (with the best of intentions of
improving service and cutting administrative overhead) shut down existing
non-digital forms of access. <br><br>
There has been some focus with the PrepCom process on the importance of
traditional media and community media --and on multiple access points to
the ICT network. My point is different: that access to public
information and government services must be available to citizens in a
format that they choose -- for some (like me) it may be on-line, for
others it may be paper. The issue is not just access to the ICT
network, but the preservation of existing channels of access to
information and government services. Not everyone will ever be
"wired" -- either by choice or by circumstance. [The
importance of maintaining alternative mechanisms was a lesson that US
banks learned the hard way when they attempted to switch to an all ATM
system and reduce or eliminate tellers -- and their customers
revolted.]<br><br>
Somewhere in the Declaration we need a statement of the principle that
ICT should be use to enhance and supplement existing access to
information and government services and not substitute for existing forms
of access. Otherwise, we risk creating an information superhighway
system where the only way to get to government services is by the
ICT-equivalent of having to drive on the autobahn in a Porsche when we
also need the information and communications access equivalents of taking
the bus, riding your bicycle or simply walking.<br><br>
Our focus must continue to be on information and communications -- not
simply on information and communications technologies. I would
submit that there is a big difference between the two.<br><br>
Ken Jarboe<br><br>
<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Kenan Patrick Jarboe, Ph.D.<br>
Athena Alliance<br>
911 East Capitol Street, SE<br>
Washington, DC 20003-3903<br>
(202) 547-7064<br>
kpjarboe@athenaalliance.org<br>
<a href="http://www.athenaalliance.org/" eudora="autourl">http://www.athenaalliance.org</a>
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